To wonder if my plumbing bill was a rip-off caused by a Private Equity "scam"

[RetiredMan]

In the past year or two, I needed the inlet valve for my cold water tank replacing. The two different plumbers I used pre-covid would have charged about £60 to do this, but they had both retired. Long story short, after speaking to three plumbing firms to get quote, I ended up paying £250 to get the job done.

I couldn't understand the price increase. This was the simplest job a plumber can do. It takes about half-an-hour, and based on what one of them said they charged for their time on their web-site, under £100 would have been nearer the mark. When I queried this with one firm, they said it was a fixed price for the task regardless of time.

Several months later I needed a toilet cistern inlet valve replaced. This is exactly the same job, fitting the same kind of valve to a plastic water tank, only the water tank is smaller. One of those same firms charged me £90 to do this, which was more like what I expected.

Recently on Youtube, I saw a video which explained that in the USA, private equity firms are buying up all businesses of the same type in local areas, then getting them to raise prices in concert. The businesses all looked like the long-established independent traders they had been while building up their local reputations, but behind the scenes, their prices were now being controlled by private equity firms.

I asked Google's AI if this kind of private equity activity was happening in the UK, and it said it was, but with care homes and childcare, not tradesman as such.

What do you think? Was I "scammed" by private equity? ("Scam" in quotes because it may not be illegal, though it probably should be.) If so, should the government do something to restore competition?

To those saying the job is too small, let me simplify the facts in my OP that you aren't addressing.

Why are the three different firms quoting £300 for one half-hour job, and £100 for another half-hour job, that is functionally identical, requires exactly the same part and the same sequence of steps to install it? When two other plumbers I used pre-covid did not charge different amounts for these jobs?

It will be interesting to see how long the valves replaced in 2023 and 2025 each last, the previous was a cheap job but only lasted 8 years. The toilet cistern valve only lasted 6 years. It seems a lot to have had them both replaced twice in 10 years, maybe going for the cheapest plumber isn’t always the best strategy if they’re using cheap parts which wear down. Hopefully the more expensive job will last longer.

If all three are quoting the same then that is pretty much the price you are going to have to pay, irrespective of whether the plumbing industry has been take over by green lizards or not.

I agree, that's why I paid it. This thread is not about me still being hurt by the price two years later, it's too discuss the potential role of the "green lizards", Private Equity.

I can afford the price, I just want to know why it is what it was, as I have no satisfactory explanation.

If private equity is the answer, I may have been indirectly involved in ripping myself off, ironically, as I have huge amounts of my ISA and pension investments in Private Equity investment trusts!

Your original premise that the cost pre covid/Brexit should be the same as a the cost post Covid is a flawed one.

I work in an industry where I instruct trades to undertake both small and large jobs frequently (by frequently I mean daily, and when I say small and large I mean sub £100 to £5m+). Everything in this sector went up in price dramatically after lockdown. This is as a consequence of Brexit, the fuel and materials supply issues due to the war in Ukraine and presumably tradespeople clawing back some of the income they would have lost out on during the period of lockdown, not to mention that the insurance industry has hardened so their basic overheads have gone up. And although prices have stabilised (for a while contractors wouldn’t hold prices for more than 30 days as it was fluctuating so much) they haven’t gone down. A lot of companies and sole traders have a minimum call out fee because it’s not cost effective for them to do these small jobs; they still have to travel to you, insure their vans (and themselves), and frankly, risk turning down an all day job on the basis that they’ve already booked themselves in for half an hour at yours.

With the best will in the world - you’re complaining that it was a small job but if it was that easy, you should have done it yourself. If you couldn’t do it yourself in the same time it took them then you’re paying them for their expertise not their time, and that’s a different matter.

Its standard practice, let me simplify it:

change light fitting = 1 hour = £50 if I'm looking for work

Same job, same timeframe, but I'm up to my eyeballs, would rather not bother, so I chuck in £150 and if they accept its worth me messing up my day.

Some of the bigger firms are not interested in smaller jobs at all as they can better make money from fuse board changes and re-wires than adding a socket, so will always over quote.

There is no set list of charges, its entirely up to he who quotes what he quotes.

Because they can, basically.

If plumbing components are anything like electrical, quality has gone down the toilet (pardon pun)

I'd expect a big firm like Pimlico to be really expensive and probably try and monopolise the prices in the market. But most plumbers are tiny little one man band or limited co with two staff.

I think it's happening with vets. Medivet is owned by private equity and they've taken over every independent practice. Now the prices are through the roof.

"To those saying the job is too small, let me simplify the facts in my OP that you aren't addressing."
Your mistake is that you are treating it as an exact science. Quite simply, it isn't.
As someone else very correctly illustrated with their light fitting change example, the exact same job can be a different price on a different day/different circumstances.

I asked google AI about the relative difficulty of the two jobs, and it did say that the water tank job was less attractive to a plumber, but for a lot of reasons that mostly don't apply in my case, because my water tank is a cupboard in a flat, not in a loft in a house. However maybe that is the answer, the pre-covid sole traders I knew, new the large development I live on well, and knew how much work was involved.

Since that time, I've had a change of management company, and the new plumbers on the recommended supplier list are all more corporate than the old sole traders, none of the new ones is a one-man-band. The one that did the work definitely did sub-contract the job. One of the others, the proprietor did my toilet cistern himself, but when he was quoting for the water tank, he had employees/apprentices that he was going to send to do the work.

I guess, being more corporate, they do just charge fixed prices for certain jobs, and don't base prices on local knowledge, even though they should have that knowledge. Guess I need to find a proper sole trader, for the future.

Also the toilet cistern was a year later, maybe there were labour shortages immediately post-covid, that had eased by then.

Are you being paid to advertise Gemini? Because every response has you saying "I asked Google AI" and you're ignoring what actual people are telling you. Stop relying on AI!

I think unless you can actually identify that these companies are owned by private equity, then YABU.

Tradesmen have increased their prices for a variety of reasons - time, materials, demand etc.

I think people forget that they aren’t paying to spend time with a tradesman but for their expertise, experience, tools etc. A single trader has no sick pay, no employer making pension contributions and no holiday pay.